Monday, 25 June 2012

The longer
I work the more convinced I become that the roots of almost all employee
related issues come down to communication.
There are always two sides to every argument and frequently each side
has failed to appreciate the point that the other side was making, until it is
too late and an area of conflict has developed.
Sometimes poor communication and misunderstanding come about as a result
of unconscious bias. We make decisions
every day that favour one group to the detriment of others and often we don’t
even realise that we are doing it. (Did you know that, according to the
research findings published by Timothy Judge and Daniel Cable in “The Effect of
Physical Height on Workplace Success and Income” in the “Journal of Applied
Psychology, less than 15% of American men are over six foot tall, yet almost
60% of corporate CEOs are over six foot tall and that less than 4% of American
men are over six foot, two inches tall, yet more than 36% of corporate CEOs are
over six foot, two inches tall? I am sure that the job description for almost
all these CEOs did not specify their needing to be above a certain height.)

We will
never fully eradicate bias (it’s a fundamental part of human nature and
necessary to enable us to make choices – all recruitment is a form of
discrimination, provided that there is a selection of candidates to choose
from) - but we can take measures to try to avoid unconscious and inappropriate bias,
that might adversely impact on our futures, as there is often little point in accepting
the status quo and expecting permanent growth.

In my opinion, successful individuals and organisations are the ones
that actively seek people’s opinions, rather than simply relying on their own
perceptions. Take Griffin Health
Services (Griffin), as hospital and healthcare provider/consultancy in the USA,
as an example. It might have been easy
for the hospital to accept the fact that it was destined to be “an also ran”,
as it is surrounded by six successful, larger and better funded hospitals that,
on the surface, appeared to have the advantages that would attract the majority
of patients. However, Patrick Charmel,
the CEO of Griffin made the best of what many would have perceived as a bad
situation. He appreciated that Griffin’s
survival depended on the hospital’s ability to differentiate itself from these other
neighbouring health providers. In an
attempt to better understand patient requirements, he and his team went out and
spoke with expectant mothers to find out what they actually wanted from a
hospital. Their market research told
them that “they did not want giving birth to be treated like a medical
emergency or illness care event. Mothers
did not want to be exposed to sick patients or the traditional hospital environment. They did not want the visitation rules that
were standard protocol in hospitals.”
Armed with this knowledge, Charmel and his team oversaw the
transformation of Griffin - they built a special entrance solely for mothers
and their families and changed the décor of the maternity area to make it feel
more like a home than an institution; they introduced queen-size beds and
Jacuzzis (to ease during early labour) and changed the way that doctors interacted
and cared for patients, rejecting the conventional one-size-fits-all approach
and involving the broader family, to enhance the patient experience. By Charmel’s own admission, the changes did
not suit everyone – a number of traditionally minded medical professionals
chose to leave. However, Griffin is now
recognized for having industry leading patient satisfaction ratings and has
branched out into being a specialist advisor for other medical and healthcare
institutions that wish to enhance understanding and their relationships with
patients. Communication has proved the
foundation of Griffin’s lauded success, as Charmel says:

“At the
outset of my career, I knew intuitively what I now know empirically: talk to
the consumer. The consumer is the
inspiration for innovation. If you
probe, and if you listen, the consumer will tell you what she likes, dislikes,
her concerns. The consumer usually won’t
give you the answers. Getting the answer
is the job of the problem solver, not the problem of the sufferer.”

Charmel is
right, but I know from my own experience that it is unwise to always take
statements at face value. When I was
still a student, my mother lived in a beautiful little cottage on the outskirts
of a village in Oxfordshire. She invited
me to spend some of one summer with her and my sisters and I brought a couple
of friends from university along to join us.
During the time that we were there, the village had decided to hold a
dinner and dance in one of the local barns, to raise money for charity. My mother bought tickets for the six of us and
was told that it was going to be a themed evening - everyone was going to turn
up in 1970’s attire. My mother’s cottage
was slightly out of the village, surrounded by fields and, as she grew her own
vegetables and had a well-stocked freezer, she was quite self-sufficient. Time passed and we had no need to go into the
village to buy things and hence we did not hear the local news.

My mother
is a hoarder - she has copies of magazines from the 1950’s, dubious jars and cans
of food collected over the past five decades
(many of which I suspect could be used as explosive devises, should the
need ever arise for a self-armed Home Guard) and wardrobes full of wonderful
clothes. We all spent a blissful afternoon
on the day of the village party riffling through kaftans and vibrant floral
shirts. Eventually, dressed in clashing
colours, with flowers in our hair, we set off to stroll over the fields to the
barn. 1970’s footwear is not ideal for
traipsing across rough farmland; the walk took us longer than expected. By the time we arrived the other attendees
had already gone into the barn for supper.
We made an unavoidably dramatic entrance in our outlandish clothes and
were greeted by a stunned silence. All
heads turned to towards us, some mouths agape.
Word had not got to us that there had been a change of heart and that it
was now a normal community party with no 1970s theme. If we had made an effort to confirm details,
rather than simply relying on what had been said, we could have avoided our
embarrassment. Mind you – I suspect the
party would have been less memorable - we all had a wonderful time, even if we
were viewed as part of the evening’s entertainment.

It is worth
remembering that things are not always as they seem and that a bit of research
and confirmation often pays dividends. Mind
you, even when accurately noted, comments and signals can be confusing. When Richard Nixon’s mother said to him
“Dick, don’t you ever give up?!”, shortly after the Watergate scandal broke, what did she
mean? Was she encouraging him or
condemning? Words can be confusing. So can signals. Many of us are familiar with body language,
indeed there is a lot written on the subject – I don’t deny that it can prove a
good indicator, but visible signs need to be used with caution, as the reason a
person has their arms folded when talking with you may not be because they are
defensive, it might be because they are cold or are embarrassed by a stain on
their shirt. I have a mortifying memory
from when I was a lactating mother that proves my point. An effective communicator should be able to
“read between the lines” to appreciate what a person really means. I am sure that we are all familiar with people
who make comments such as “I hear what you are saying” that seem to imply
agreement (and are often interpreted as such by a person who wants to hear
affirmation), but could be a polite way of expressing disagreement. Words are often ambiguous.

I sometimes
wonder if our lives would be easier if we used pre-agreed phrases or actions
with mutually confirmed and unambiguous meanings. In the centuries before air-conditioning,
when polite ladies in society were considered unsuitably dressed unless they
carried a fan, women were able to communicate secretly using their fans. Depending on which hand the fan was held in,
whether it was open or closed and where it was touched, a person could
communicate a multitude of messages without speaking a word, for example:

Action

Meaning

Waving the fan with
the left hand

They are watching us

Touching the edge of
the fan with your fingers

I want to talk to
you

Opening fan and then
fanning using left hand

Come and talk to me

Holding it closed
against the right cheek

Yes

Holding it closed
against the left cheek

No

Opening and closing
fan several times

You are cruel

It must
have been fun, although many a message could have been conveyed in error, by
those simply holding their fans whilst others presumed that they were saying
something significant. As stated
earlier, to be effective communication needs two parties to understand what is
being said.Last night I went to see
some amazing dance, by Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, at Sadler’s Wells.The performance is part of the Festival 2012
- an artistic precursor to the Olympics – and is one of a number of pieces
about World Cities to celebrate the people and countries coming to London.Last night’s presentation was called “Nefes”
and depicted Istanbul.It was a mesmerising
and evocative performance, with cascades and pools of water and extraordinary
lighting.One image has stuck with me in
relation to this post: a dancer continuously leapt, to exchange kisses with a
girl on a high platform on wheels.As he
jumped, the platform was slowly pulled across the stage, whilst he continued springing
up and down where he was.Eventually, he
was left leaping and kissing the air where the kiss had been.Don’t let your communication fall into the
same trap.Be careful to ensure that
your message is received and that you appreciate the stance of your
counter parties.If you don’t the world will
pass you by...

Sunday, 17 June 2012

When I was a little
girl I lived in Wimbledon. We had a modern
house with a wonderful garden. My
cousins and I spent hours building camps in the rough scrub and climbing the
cedar tree – its branches were easy to scale, almost like a ladder, and wide
enough to lie on (provided that you didn’t wriggle too much). Nothing grew under the cedar, its aromatic
scent filled the air and the ground was covered in its fine pine needles which
produced a crumbly soil, easy to dig into. One year, when my sisters were very young, a delightful
Swiss au pair girl came to stay; she was with us to help my mother, whilst
improving her English. I liked her a
lot - she was fun and caring and we soon developed a strong bond, playing hide
and seek in the garden, making things together and I even helped her with the
housework.

Now, being a parent
myself, I can sympathise with my mother, who was newly out of hospital after a
particularly gruelling caesarean. She
was short tempered and easily roused to extremely vocal outbursts of anger and
frustration. Both the au pair and I were
quite nervous of her. My mother was (and
is) a wonderful cook and she had a few unusual kitchen gadgets to help her. One of these was a “cream maker” – a small hand-plunger
operated device that re-amalgamated butter and milk to make cream. It was made of sky blue and white plastic and
my mother was very pleased with it.
After each use it had to be carefully dismantled and washed. One piece, like a tiny white Enoki mushroom, acted
as the lynch pin, connecting the pump handle to the main device. After lunch one day, the au pair put all the
cream maker pieces in a washing up bowl and, when she had finished cleaning
them, she tipped the sudsy water down the drain. It was only when she and I commenced
reconstructing the appliance that we discovered that the vital connecting pin
had been flushed away. We were horrified
and knew that my mother’s wrath would be fearful. In panic we placed the remaining pieces in a
plastic bag and buried them in the soft soil under the cedar tree. We hoped to
buy ourselves some time to source a replacement piece, by ensuring that the
Cream Maker was out of sight and hence hopefully out of mind. We failed to secure a replacement (we had to
buy a whole new one) and I suspect that the original cream maker is still in
its shallow grave. With hindsight, we
could have created a replacement piece from a paperclip and hence not lost the
ability to make cream. Mind you, my
mother would still have been angry, even if we had repaired the cream maker
with an ingenious solution.

The au pair and my
reactions were very human. We wanted to
avoid having a difficult conversation and we concealed the problem in an
attempt to ensure calm. At work people
often adopt a similar approach, either ignoring or concealing undesirable occurrences
and behaviours. In a previous post, just
after last year’s English riots, I talked about the impact of the “herd
mentality” that discourages individuals from speaking out against the majority
view (http://www.kategl.blogspot.co.uk/2011_08_01_archive.html). I
noted that the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster could have been avoided if
some individuals had stood their ground against the commercial view. People
not speaking out usually occurs when people desire to conceal an issue that
could impact on their own personal gain, despite having a moral duty to do so (as
occurred in the Challenger incident and this is also one of the main themes of
Arthur Miller’s play “All My Sons”) or out of a reluctance to share something
that an individual fears will be ill-received (it took Darwin twenty years to
publish “The Origin of Species” and some people say that this is due to a
reluctance to upset his wife and/or to face ridicule and criticism from Society).
So called Doubting Thomases can thwart
innovation – the inventor of photocopying, Chester Carlson, invented the
process in his spare time in 1938, but it took him ten years to find a company prepared
to turn his invention into a commercial product.

Often over the course
of the past week, I have contemplated how people respond to errors and things
that we find unappealing. I saw an
excellent and moving production of “The Suit” at the Young Vic. In the dusty heat of a 1950s South African
township a husband finds his wife in bed with her lover. The man escapes leaving behind his suit. The husband then insists that the suit is treated
as an honoured guest and member of their household. The public humiliation of his wife, their sad
attempts to maintain a normal marital facade and the husband’s final remorse,
when it is too late to rectify things, is heartbreaking. As was the backdrop and brutality of
apartheid. Despite the fact that we all
learn from making initial mistakes and slowly improving – look at how we learn
to walk or read - as we age we become less supportive of experiential learning
and hence of potential innovation and resolution.

Earlier this week I
took a friend to see the filmed version of National Theatre’s production of
Frankenstein with Benedict Cumberbatch as the Creature and Jonny Lee Millar as
the Doctor. Prior to the actual film, there
was an introduction in which Cumberbatch explained how he had studied stroke
victims to learn how they regained the ability to walk, whilst Lee Miller had
learned much from observing his young son becoming mobile and, sponge-like, absorbing
information about the world around him.
Both were inspired to create their performances of the Creature’s birth
and learning to move and the outcomes were amazing. I had seen the staged version of Frankenstein
at the National Theatre last year and I was nervous about whether it would
translate to film – actually in many ways it provided the best from both media
to maximise impact. If you can, I urge
you to see it.

One of the themes in “Frankenstein”
is the Creature’s desire for companionship and Frankenstein’s aspiration to improve
on his prototype, because he is ashamed by the appearance of his Creature. Why do many adults today, especially in
Western society, seem unwilling to show and share something marvellous that they
have created? I suspect it is because they
anticipate ridicule or worse, especially if their initial effort is functional
but not attractive. By being scared of disseminating
fresh knowledge (and hence seeking to perpetuate the established ways of doing
things) we lose out. Often the initial
iterance or the solution produced is quite ugly, but the thought and effort
that has gone into its production should be lauded.

In Japan there is the
practice of “Kintsugi” (golden joinery) – i.e. mending broken objects and
deliberately making a feature of the damage by filling the cracks with
gold. There is a belief that when
something has suffered and been damaged it has a history and hence it becomes
more beautiful. According to legend, the
practice commenced in the fifteenth century when a shogun tried to repair a
Chinese teapot. He wanted a more aesthetically pleasing effect than traditional
repairs that tried to conceal what was perceived as unsightly cracks and chips. The gold celebrates the effort that has gone
into the repairs, makes a feature of the history and patterns and increases the
value of what were once mundane objects.
We can all learn from this approach and should consider applying it in
both our work and private lives – not just to enhance cracked plates but also
to acknowledge people.

Back to the burial of
the cream maker...we hid it because we were afraid of the reaction the loss of
the little pin would provoke. Much in
the same way that employees will try to disguise mistakes when they work in a “fear
and blame culture”. If we had
anticipated a different response from my mother it is probable that our
behaviour would have been different, to the benefit of all. She might have been understanding and have praised
us for providing an innovative solution - the cream maker would have been that
bit more valued in all of our eyes because, by mending it, we would have shown
that we cared and that we knew how much she appreciated it. Perhaps I should go and dig it up...

Sunday, 10 June 2012

HR has been
getting quite a bad press recently – mainly due to the Beecroft report (a
report commissioned by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS)
in response to a UK government request for areas of red tape, such as
employment law, to be simplified in order to encourage job creation and growth). Other than stating that I am not convinced
that the proposals will achieve the aim of stimulating growth and enabling increased
employment, I am not going to go into the pros and cons of Beecroft’s proposals;
others better than I have already written some excellent comments (see Laura
Chamberlain’s summary for the CIPD in Personnel Today http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2012/05/22/58548/what-does-the-beecroft-report-mean-for-government-policy.html
or the admirable amalgamation of observations produced by Michael Carty of
xperthr http://www.xperthr.co.uk/blogs/employment-intelligence/2012/05/beecroft-report-was-inspired-b.html). The thing that interests me is that Beecroft
was allegedly inspired by a former HR Director, whom he fired from his venture
capital business, who then raised a claim via the UK employment tribunal and
received significant compensation for unfair dismissal.

It is often
said that it is unwise to fire HR professionals as they, better than most, know
employee rights as well as “where the bodies are buried” in the organisations that
they work for and hence are well placed to fight their corner.Certainly, it is HR’s role to understand employment
legislation and to ensure that their employer conducts itself in an appropriate
manner.However, is that it?What is HR’s role?Is it simply a function to ensure good order?Even in today’s challenging business environment,
HR is viewed by many as a necessary overhead whose purpose is to monitor and
control.A number of senior leaders, primarily
outside HR, believe that the function has little direct ability to contribute
towards the bottom line and should not even try.

Rather like
a Georgian wife or a Southern Belle, senior leaders at times state that in
effect HR should not “trouble it’s pretty little head with complex business
issues, but should focus on maintaining order and discipline within the home”.By this, presumably they mean the:

production and maintaining of appropriate policies and procedures to
protect and support the company;

undertaking of efficient, cost effective recruitment;

ensuring that remuneration is appropriate – sufficient to attract,
retain and motivate without being overly generous; and

communicating with employees to ensure that management’s objectives are
achieved.

It appears that HR is not viewed as capable of understanding the commercial aspects of business.

I had my
knuckles rapped on Friday by a fellow Exec who felt that I was getting involved
in areas that should not concern HR (the accurate production of business
performance and productivity figures, by area and individual within each
area).In some ways he is right, I have
more than enough challenges without unnecessarily taking more onto my plate and
I should produce significant improvements in my area before wading into other
people’s troughs.It would be so easy simply
to obey and get my snout out.However, I
am a firm believer that HR cannot support a business without genuinely
understanding the commercial drivers.I
see HR as being responsible for enhancing business performance through the most
effective use of people.I also believe
that HR is a crucial part of the business, and will remain so for as long as
most organisations rely on individuals to enable their success.

HR is often
the eyes and ears of a business, picking up on issues before they are commonly
aired and is well placed to bring potential concerns to the table. HR needs to be brave and feel comfortable
speaking out when certain matters that could impede the business are brought to
its attention. Employees often turn to
HR when they are concerned and a good HR professional should be able to sense
when things are not quite as they should be.
I once took a phone call from a distressed relative whose son was in
hospital. She explained that he was near
suicidal due to what had happened to him and wanted to know what we “his
employer” were going to do to redress matters.
I knew that we did not have, nor had ever had, an employee with the name
she gave me but, instead of simply telling her that she had the wrong number, I
listened to her complaint. It became
clear that, even though her son was not an employee, he had significant knowledge
about a number of our employees and the business. Following the “there’s no smoke without a
fire” principal, I undertook some investigations. What came to light was a significant fraud
involving a number of individuals. Due
to my ability to read between the lines in that initial telephone conversation,
I exposed a multimillion pound embezzlement scam and managed both to prevent it
and thereby to save my employer a significant sum of money.

Perhaps if
more people had listened and been prepared to voice their concerns, many of the
much worse issues and subsequent losses, due to the Global Economic Crisis of
the past five years, could have been averted.We have a similar situation within Europe at the moment.Many of us have said for a while that it was
only a matter of time before Spain would need financial assistance.It was clear that, like in Ireland, huge sums
of money had been borrowed to finance unnecessary construction projects and
mad-cap ventures.Even as a tourist
visiting Spain I could see that there was unnecessary building developments –
such as airports, housing and golf complexes – that would be impossible for
local businesses and authorities to sustain.What possessed the Spanish banks to lend money for these projects?Presumably the same blind desire for profit
that infected the Irish banking system.People in Barcelona have spent the past three days demonstrating against
the predatory practices of banks.

Perhaps the
waiter or the chef should have voiced concerns, before the diners had become
too extravagant. In the same way,
perhaps HR should be encouraged to voice its unease. We live in a complex and constantly changing
world. None of us has all the answers
but if the “pretty heads” are comfortable speaking out, perhaps some future
problems can be averted.

Tuesday, 5 June 2012

As I sit at
the computer this late Tuesday afternoon, typing these words for you, I can
hear the rain drumming, like impatient fingers on a biscuit tin, on the roof
outside. As you are probably aware, the
last four days have been a time of festivity in the UK and across the
Commonwealth. It is the Diamond Jubilee celebrations
for Queen Elizabeth II. Judging from my
personal experiences, the long weekend has been a happy time with families,
neighbours and friends getting together and numerous events organised to mark
the occasion. I am supposed to be
attending a Jubilee Scottish dance in our church hall later this evening...a
final fling before returning to work in the morning.

There are
lots of things that have amazed and amused over the past four days – the number
and diversity of boats in the flotilla, the sight of a War Horse puppet rearing
in salute above the National Theatre (and the Queen’s evident delight), a
water-borne belfry ringing a passage for the craft on the Thames as they made
their way to Tower Bridge before being moved to its own resting place in St James’
church (“Wren’s Lantern”) at Garlickhythe in The City of London , the amazing
line-up at the concert outside Buckingham Palace, Grace Jones wishing the Queen
“happy birthday” after hula-hooping for what seemed an age, the people drawn
from across the Commonwealth singing “Sing”, the sight of 70,000 concert
attendees stretching along the Mall to Trafalgar Square, the amazing fireworks,
Madness on the Palace roof with the brilliant animations projected onto the
facade below them, the beacons, the carriage cavalcade, the historic flypast, the
feu de joie (only the second time it
has occurred in the UK) and the daftness of the busbies being raised in salute,
the street parties, the fetes, the services and celebrations. Few can do pomp and circumstance better than
the British.

However,
one of the things that struck me most (must be because I’m British) was the
weather. After the luxurious heat wave
of last weekend, the UK was predicted to suffer an almost constant deluge, with
the worst of the weather centred on London.
Regardless of the threat, people carried on – admittedly, it was a
little damp waiting on the riverbank for the flotilla, but, after a harsh
downpour shortly before the start, it held off until The Spirit of Chartwell
and the majority of the smaller boats had safely reached the end of their
journey. For all of the major events the
weather seemed to hold off from giving us its worst - the concert evening was
near perfect, the rain did not commence until after the carriage parade and
flypast. It is June in England and we as
a nation would probably have been disappointed if there were no weather
glitches, however it would have been worse if the weather forecasts had proved
right. Despite the threat the organisers
carried out their plans and their efforts paid off.

One of the
main learnings I have taken from this long weekend is that it is worth
persevering and seeing things through.
Even when things look bleak, there is always hope and you should not
give up. The Queen herself has been
exemplary in her determination in fulfilling her Public Duty. I wouldn’t want her life, but there is no doubt
that she has touched the lives of millions and, in her own way, has helped to
make the world a better place. Earlier
today my family and I took time out to watch The Shawshank Redemption. It is a powerful film about helping others
and living life to the full. Today is a
brief post as I can hear the drone of bagpipes from the top of the road and
need to draw this to a close. I will
leave you with a quote from the film that seems to summarise much of the past
four days as well as recommending the best approach for the future:

About Me

Creative Connector, Advisor, Mother/Wife/Friend, Leader, Urban Naturalist, International HR Professional and Company Director. Passionate about enabling people & organisations to exceed their own expectations